Ambient is term which can be thrown about a little too readily these days. But how do you define it? Simple song structures? Sparse instrumental arrangement? Pace? Or a combination of these things? One’s thing’s for sure: if you were to add beauty to that list, then The License to Interpret Dreams is Ambient 101. Antonymes, aka Ian M. Hazeldine, gently emerges from the wilds of his home in North Wales to deliver this beautiful edition of classical ambient delight on Perth’s Hidden Shoal Records. Fusing gentle piano thoughts, aching string lines, and fleeting field recordings, Antonymes paints a sonic tapestry of majestically minimal excursions into daydream-esque escapes.
Beginning in quiet contemplation with ‘A Fragile Acceptance’, each note hangs by a shear delicate thread, almost hesitant to continue. The sheer space that each note is given to breathe reflects a deft hand in minimalism. Each piece displays the same exquisite tenderness, in some parts seemingly unsure on whether it wants to continue or not, such is it’s restriction. On ‘Womb of the Great Mother’, enormous rolling synth pads are underscored by the sound of birdsong, before giving way to a singular piano quietly exploring it’s own isolation. ‘Landscape Beyond an Open Window’ sounds just as it is titled, perhaps if you were looking through a rainy kitchen windowpane across a rolling fog covered valley. As ‘The Gospel Pass’ continues the same motif, we’re pulled into what could be a castle in years gone by, courtesy of organs and harpsichords. With ‘Endlessly’, Antonymes allows a simple melodic idea to speak for itself, sitting alone in complete isolation, breathing and moving as if alive. ‘Wave Upon the Wave’ sees cello and piano work as one for a brief moment, using each instrument’s timbral identity to fill out the aural landscape. Closer ‘On Approaching the Strange Museum’ could almost be considered a spiritual experience. In all it’s ghostly choirs and reverbed thumps, it feels like an enormous lumbering spirit, perhaps that of the land itself, steadily traversing the terrain in sheer majestic wonderment, before slowly making it’s way off into the night, before the memory of him emerges from the darkness a full minute later, almost pleading for you not to forget the beauty you’ve just witnessed.
Perhaps the most important ingredient of ambient music is Patience. This is something Antonymes seems supremely capable of. Each instrument, each melody is very carefully considered, and held just until the right time, before gently being allowed to proceed. As the title suggests, this music really does have the license to interpret dreams, and presents everything that is right about ambient experimental music. A beautiful edition. Go find it.
Nick Giles
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